ALBERT

Description: Gene tree incongruence arising from incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) can reduce the accuracy of concatenation-based estimations of species trees. Although coalescent-based species tree estimation methods can have good accuracy in the presence of ILS, they are sensitive to gene tree estimation error. We propose a pipeline that uses bootstrapping to evaluate whether two genes are likely to have the same tree, then it groups genes into sets using a graph-theoretic optimization and estimates a tree on each subset using concatenation, and finally produces an estimated species tree from these trees using the preferred coalescent-based method. Statistical binning improves the accuracy of MP-EST, a popular coalescent-based method, and we use it to produce the first genome-scale coalescent-based avian tree of life.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Mirarab, Siavash -- Bayzid, Md Shamsuzzoha -- Boussau, Bastien -- Warnow, Tandy -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1250463. doi: 10.1126/science.1250463. Epub 2014 Dec 11.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. ; Laboratoire de Biometrie et Biologie Evolutive, CNRS, UMR5558, Universite Lyon 1, 69622, Villeurbanne, France. ; Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Department of Bioengineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA. warnow@illinois.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25504728" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: To better determine the history of modern birds, we performed a genome-scale phylogenetic analysis of 48 species representing all orders of Neoaves using phylogenomic methods created to handle genome-scale data. We recovered a highly resolved tree that confirms previously controversial sister or close relationships. We identified the first divergence in Neoaves, two groups we named Passerea and Columbea, representing independent lineages of diverse and convergently evolved land and water bird species. Among Passerea, we infer the common ancestor of core landbirds to have been an apex predator and confirm independent gains of vocal learning. Among Columbea, we identify pigeons and flamingoes as belonging to sister clades. Even with whole genomes, some of the earliest branches in Neoaves proved challenging to resolve, which was best explained by massive protein-coding sequence convergence and high levels of incomplete lineage sorting that occurred during a rapid radiation after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event about 66 million years ago.〈br /〉〈br /〉〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4405904/" target="_blank"〉〈img src="https://static.pubmed.gov/portal/portal3rc.fcgi/4089621/img/3977009" border="0"〉〈/a〉   〈a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4405904/" target="_blank"〉This paper as free author manuscript - peer-reviewed and accepted for publication〈/a〉〈br /〉〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Jarvis, Erich D -- Mirarab, Siavash -- Aberer, Andre J -- Li, Bo -- Houde, Peter -- Li, Cai -- Ho, Simon Y W -- Faircloth, Brant C -- Nabholz, Benoit -- Howard, Jason T -- Suh, Alexander -- Weber, Claudia C -- da Fonseca, Rute R -- Li, Jianwen -- Zhang, Fang -- Li, Hui -- Zhou, Long -- Narula, Nitish -- Liu, Liang -- Ganapathy, Ganesh -- Boussau, Bastien -- Bayzid, Md Shamsuzzoha -- Zavidovych, Volodymyr -- Subramanian, Sankar -- Gabaldon, Toni -- Capella-Gutierrez, Salvador -- Huerta-Cepas, Jaime -- Rekepalli, Bhanu -- Munch, Kasper -- Schierup, Mikkel -- Lindow, Bent -- Warren, Wesley C -- Ray, David -- Green, Richard E -- Bruford, Michael W -- Zhan, Xiangjiang -- Dixon, Andrew -- Li, Shengbin -- Li, Ning -- Huang, Yinhua -- Derryberry, Elizabeth P -- Bertelsen, Mads Frost -- Sheldon, Frederick H -- Brumfield, Robb T -- Mello, Claudio V -- Lovell, Peter V -- Wirthlin, Morgan -- Schneider, Maria Paula Cruz -- Prosdocimi, Francisco -- Samaniego, Jose Alfredo -- Vargas Velazquez, Amhed Missael -- Alfaro-Nunez, Alonzo -- Campos, Paula F -- Petersen, Bent -- Sicheritz-Ponten, Thomas -- Pas, An -- Bailey, Tom -- Scofield, Paul -- Bunce, Michael -- Lambert, David M -- Zhou, Qi -- Perelman, Polina -- Driskell, Amy C -- Shapiro, Beth -- Xiong, Zijun -- Zeng, Yongli -- Liu, Shiping -- Li, Zhenyu -- Liu, Binghang -- Wu, Kui -- Xiao, Jin -- Yinqi, Xiong -- Zheng, Qiuemei -- Zhang, Yong -- Yang, Huanming -- Wang, Jian -- Smeds, Linnea -- Rheindt, Frank E -- Braun, Michael -- Fjeldsa, Jon -- Orlando, Ludovic -- Barker, F Keith -- Jonsson, Knud Andreas -- Johnson, Warren -- Koepfli, Klaus-Peter -- O'Brien, Stephen -- Haussler, David -- Ryder, Oliver A -- Rahbek, Carsten -- Willerslev, Eske -- Graves, Gary R -- Glenn, Travis C -- McCormack, John -- Burt, Dave -- Ellegren, Hans -- Alstrom, Per -- Edwards, Scott V -- Stamatakis, Alexandros -- Mindell, David P -- Cracraft, Joel -- Braun, Edward L -- Warnow, Tandy -- Jun, Wang -- Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Zhang, Guojie -- DP1 OD000448/OD/NIH HHS/ -- DP1OD000448/OD/NIH HHS/ -- R24 GM092842/GM/NIGMS NIH HHS/ -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Dec 12;346(6215):1320-31. doi: 10.1126/science.1253451.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. ; Scientific Computing Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg, Germany. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an 710061, China. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; CNRS UMR 5554, Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier, Universite Montpellier II Montpellier, France. ; Department of Neurobiology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), and Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. ; Department of Evolutionary Biology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, SE-752 36 Uppsala Sweden. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. Biodiversity and Biocomplexity Unit, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Onna-son, Okinawa 904-0495, Japan. ; Department of Statistics and Institute of Bioinformatics, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. ; Laboratoire de Biometrie et Biologie Evolutive, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Universite de Lyon, F-69622 Villeurbanne, France. ; Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. Institucio Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats, Barcelona, Spain. ; Bioinformatics and Genomics Programme, Centre for Genomic Regulation, Dr. Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain. ; Joint Institute for Computational Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA. ; Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ; The Genome Institute, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MI 63108, USA. ; Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Institute for Genomics, Biocomputing and Biotechnology, Mississippi State University, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA. Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC), Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales, UK. ; Organisms and Environment Division, Cardiff School of Biosciences, Cardiff University Cardiff CF10 3AX, Wales, UK. Key Laboratory of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. ; International Wildlife Consultants, Carmarthen SA33 5YL, Wales, UK. ; College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi'an Jiaotong University Xi'an, 710061, China. ; State Key Laboratory for Agrobiotechnology, China Agricultural University, Beijing 100094, China. ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA. Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; Center for Zoo and Wild Animal Health, Copenhagen Zoo Roskildevej 38, DK-2000 Frederiksberg, Denmark. ; Museum of Natural Science and Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA. ; Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA. Brazilian Avian Genome Consortium (CNPq/FAPESPA-SISBIO Aves), Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. ; Department of Behavioral Neuroscience, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, OR 97239, USA. ; Brazilian Avian Genome Consortium (CNPq/FAPESPA-SISBIO Aves), Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. Institute of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. ; Brazilian Avian Genome Consortium (CNPq/FAPESPA-SISBIO Aves), Federal University of Para, Belem, Para, Brazil. Institute of Medical Biochemistry Leopoldo de Meis, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro RJ 21941-902, Brazil. ; Centre for Biological Sequence Analysis, Department of Systems Biology, Technical University of Denmark Kemitorvet 208, 2800 Kgs Lyngby, Denmark. ; Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. ; Dubai Falcon Hospital, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. ; Canterbury Museum Rolleston Avenue, Christchurch 8050, New Zealand. ; Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia. ; Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. ; Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, National Cancer Institute Frederick, MD 21702, USA. Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, SB RAS and Novosibirsk State University, Novosibirsk, Russia. ; Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC 20013, USA. ; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. ; Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore, Republic of Singapore. ; Department of Vertebrate Zoology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Suitland, MD 20746, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. ; Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, Saint Paul, MN 55108, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK. ; Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Front Royal, VA 22630, USA. ; Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, Washington, DC 20008, USA. ; Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia 199004. Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33004, USA. ; Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, UCSC, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. ; San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research, Escondido, CA 92027, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Vertebrate Zoology, MRC-116, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC 20013, USA. ; Department of Environmental Health Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA. ; Moore Laboratory of Zoology and Department of Biology, Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041, USA. ; Department of Genomics and Genetics, The Roslin Institute and Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, University of Edinburgh, Easter Bush Campus, Midlothian EH25 9RG, UK. ; Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Box 7007, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China. ; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; Scientific Computing Group, Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Heidelberg, Germany. Institute of Theoretical Informatics, Department of Informatics, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, D- 76131 Karlsruhe, Germany. ; Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. ; Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA. ; Department of Biology and Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ; Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Departments of Bioengineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen, Ole Maaloes Vej 5, 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark. Princess Al Jawhara Center of Excellence in the Research of Hereditary Disorders, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia. Macau University of Science and Technology, Avenida Wai long, Taipa, Macau 999078, China. Department of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. jarvis@neuro.duke.edu tandywarnow@gmail.com mtpgilbert@gmail.com wangj@genomics.cn zhanggj@genomics.cn.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25504713" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Liu and Edwards argue against the use of weighted statistical binning within a species tree estimation pipeline. However, we show that their mathematical argument does not apply to weighted statistical binning. Furthermore, their simulation study does not follow the recommended statistical binning protocol and has data of unknown origin that bias the results against weighted statistical binning.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Mirarab, Siavash -- Bayzid, Md Shamsuzzoha -- Boussau, Bastien -- Warnow, Tandy -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Oct 9;350(6257):171. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa7719.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA. ; Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. ; Laboratoire de Biometrie Biologie Evolutive, Universite de Lyon, France. ; Department of Computer Science, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA. Departments of Bioengineering and Computer Science, The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA. warnow@illinois.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26450204" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Mitchell et al. argue that divergence-time estimates for our avian phylogeny were too young because of an "inappropriate" maximum age constraint for the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and that, as a result, most modern bird orders diverged before the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction event 66 million years ago instead of after. However, their interpretations of the fossil record and timetrees are incorrect.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Cracraft, Joel -- Houde, Peter -- Ho, Simon Y W -- Mindell, David P -- Fjeldsa, Jon -- Lindow, Bent -- Edwards, Scott V -- Rahbek, Carsten -- Mirarab, Siavash -- Warnow, Tandy -- Gilbert, M Thomas P -- Zhang, Guojie -- Braun, Edward L -- Jarvis, Erich D -- Howard Hughes Medical Institute/ -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2015 Sep 25;349(6255):1460. doi: 10.1126/science.aab1578.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Ornithology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY 10024, USA. jlc@amnh.org ebraun68@ufl.edu jarvis@neuro.duke.edu. ; Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM 88003, USA. ; School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. ; Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. ; Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen O, Denmark. Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK. ; Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. ; Department of Computer Science, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA. Departments of Bioengineering and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA. ; Centre for GeoGenetics, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Oster Voldgade 5-7, 1350 Copenhagen, Denmark. Trace and Environmental DNA Laboratory Department of Environment and Agriculture, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia 6102, Australia. ; China National GeneBank, BGI-Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518083, China. Centre for Social Evolution, Department of Biology, Universitetsparken 15, University of Copenhagen, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. ; Department of Biology and Genetics Institute, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. jlc@amnh.org ebraun68@ufl.edu jarvis@neuro.duke.edu. ; Department of Neurobiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA. jlc@amnh.org ebraun68@ufl.edu jarvis@neuro.duke.edu.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26404820" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Motivation: The estimation of species phylogenies requires multiple loci, since different loci can have different trees due to incomplete lineage sorting, modeled by the multi-species coalescent model. We recently developed a coalescent-based method, ASTRAL, which is statistically consistent under the multi-species coalescent model and which is more accurate than other coalescent-based methods on the datasets we examined. ASTRAL runs in polynomial time, by constraining the search space using a set of allowed ‘bipartitions’. Despite the limitation to allowed bipartitions, ASTRAL is statistically consistent. Results: We present a new version of ASTRAL, which we call ASTRAL-II. We show that ASTRAL-II has substantial advantages over ASTRAL: it is faster, can analyze much larger datasets (up to 1000 species and 1000 genes) and has substantially better accuracy under some conditions. ASTRAL’s running time is $$O({n}^{2}k|X{|}^{2})$$ , and ASTRAL-II’s running time is $$O(nk|X{|}^{2})$$ , where n is the number of species, k is the number of loci and X is the set of allowed bipartitions for the search space. Availability and implementation: ASTRAL-II is available in open source at https://github.com/smirarab/ASTRAL and datasets used are available at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~phylo/datasets/astral2/ . Contact: smirarab@gmail.com Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Description: Species tree reconstruction is complicated by effects of incomplete lineage sorting, commonly modeled by the multi-species coalescent model (MSC). While there has been substantial progress in developing methods that estimate a species tree given a collection of gene trees, less attention has been paid to fast and accurate methods of quantifying support. In this article, we propose a fast algorithm to compute quartet-based support for each branch of a given species tree with regard to a given set of gene trees. We then show how the quartet support can be used in the context of the MSC to compute (1) the local posterior probability (PP) that the branch is in the species tree and (2) the length of the branch in coalescent units. We evaluate the precision and recall of the local PP on a wide set of simulated and biological datasets, and show that it has very high precision and improved recall compared with multi-locus bootstrapping. The estimated branch lengths are highly accurate when gene tree estimation error is low, but are underestimated when gene tree estimation error increases. Computation of both the branch length and local PP is implemented as new features in ASTRAL.

Description: Motivation: Species trees provide insight into basic biology, including the mechanisms of evolution and how it modifies biomolecular function and structure, biodiversity and co-evolution between genes and species. Yet, gene trees often differ from species trees, creating challenges to species tree estimation. One of the most frequent causes for conflicting topologies between gene trees and species trees is incomplete lineage sorting (ILS), which is modelled by the multi-species coalescent. While many methods have been developed to estimate species trees from multiple genes, some which have statistical guarantees under the multi-species coalescent model, existing methods are too computationally intensive for use with genome-scale analyses or have been shown to have poor accuracy under some realistic conditions. Results: We present ASTRAL, a fast method for estimating species trees from multiple genes. ASTRAL is statistically consistent, can run on datasets with thousands of genes and has outstanding accuracy—improving on MP-EST and the population tree from BUCKy, two statistically consistent leading coalescent-based methods. ASTRAL is often more accurate than concatenation using maximum likelihood, except when ILS levels are low or there are too few gene trees. Availability and implementation: ASTRAL is available in open source form at https://github.com/smirarab/ASTRAL/ . Datasets studied in this article are available at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/phylo/datasets/astral . Contact: warnow@illinois.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Description: Motivation: Abundance profiling (also called ‘phylogenetic profiling’) is a crucial step in understanding the diversity of a metagenomic sample, and one of the basic techniques used for this is taxonomic identification of the metagenomic reads. Results: We present taxon identification and phylogenetic profiling (TIPP), a new marker-based taxon identification and abundance profiling method. TIPP combines SAT\'e-enabled phylogenetic placement a phylogenetic placement method, with statistical techniques to control the classification precision and recall, and results in improved abundance profiles. TIPP is highly accurate even in the presence of high indel errors and novel genomes, and matches or improves on previous approaches, including NBC, mOTU, PhymmBL, MetaPhyler and MetaPhlAn. Availability and implementation: Software and supplementary materials are available at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/phylo/software/sepp/tipp-submission/ . Contact: warnow@illinois.edu Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Description: Reconstructing the origin and evolution of land plants and their algal relatives is a fundamental problem in plant phylogenetics, and is essential for understanding how critical adaptations arose, including the embryo, vascular tissue, seeds, and flowers. Despite advances in molecular systematics, some hypotheses of relationships remain weakly resolved. Inferring deep...

Description: Placental mammals comprise three principal clades: Afrotheria (e.g., elephants and tenrecs), Xenarthra (e.g., armadillos and sloths), and Boreoeutheria (all other placental mammals), the relationships among which are the subject of controversy and a touchstone for debate on the limits of phylogenetic inference. Previous analyses have found support for all three hypotheses, leading some to conclude that this phylogenetic problem might be impossible to resolve due to the compounded effects of incomplete lineage sorting (ILS) and a rapid radiation. Here we show, using a genome scale nucleotide data set, microRNAs, and the reanalysis of the three largest previously published amino acid data sets, that the root of Placentalia lies between Atlantogenata and Boreoeutheria. Although we found evidence for ILS in early placental evolution, we are able to reject previous conclusions that the placental root is a hard polytomy that cannot be resolved. Reanalyses of previous data sets recover Atlantogenata + Boreoeutheria and show that contradictory results are a consequence of poorly fitting evolutionary models; instead, when the evolutionary process is better-modeled, all data sets converge on Atlantogenata. Our Bayesian molecular clock analysis estimates that marsupials diverged from placentals 157–170 Ma, crown Placentalia diverged 86–100 Ma, and crown Atlantogenata diverged 84–97 Ma. Our results are compatible with placental diversification being driven by dispersal rather than vicariance mechanisms, postdating early phases in the protracted opening of the Atlantic Ocean.